


Through the Years

by ashleyfanfic



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 00:43:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10888317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashleyfanfic/pseuds/ashleyfanfic
Summary: Scorpius and Rose go through the ups and downs of friendship to find something more through the absence of one another





	Through the Years

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks go out to my beta amethyst18 who pointed out to me that this fic had some issues with moving too fast through some parts and encouraging it to be fleshed out a little more. She’s so good at calling me out on rushing things.
> 
> This was written for the smrw_santa fest on Livejournal

_Scorpius was running down the hall from some members of his house. Their favorite past time was to torment Scorpius by beating him up and then healing him so no one could see the bruises, the main reason being nothing more than his family affiliation. He ducked into the library and quickly moved over to a table and climbed beneath it. He saw them stop at the table, and held his breath as he waited for them to go away. It was then he heard a voice directly above him. “Why are you standing over my table?”  
  
“Bugger off, Weasley.”  
  
“I’d like to, but you see, you’re in my reading light and making it difficult to ignore you.” That’s when he noticed a pair of legs beneath the table and nearly groaned as he realized he had hidden beneath her table and she would probably give him up as soon as they told her who it was they were looking, feeling that she probably felt about him the way everyone else in the school did.  
  
“Have you seen Scorpius Malfoy?” one of them questioned.  
  
Papers shuffled and she answered. “No. But I am curious why older students are looking for a first year?” she said defiantly.   
  
He had no idea what was going on above him and he hoped that she would continue to keep their attention away from him where he had hidden beneath the table. “We just want to talk to him.”  
  
There was silence again and then he heard her sigh. “I see. Well, I haven’t seen him. In fact, you’re the first people to come in here in over an hour.”  
  
“How do you know?” one of the others asked.  
  
“Because I have direct view of the door. If you’re not going to study, then you should probably get out of here before Madam Humphrey finds you and puts you in detention for distracting those that are trying to study.”  
  
He was amazed by her calm demeanor and the fact that she was lying to protect him. He watched as they walked away and heard them say they would find him in the common room later. It wasn’t until he saw the door close that he peeked his head above the table and stared at the door with relief. He felt the chair move and a hand reached out to him. He took her hand and crawled from beneath it and simply stared at her. It was his first time actually being this close to her. She had the standard Weasley red-hair, but unlike her cousins who had very straight hair, Rose had long spiral curls that fell down her back. “Are you alright?” she asked.  
  
He nodded. “Yes. Thanks for your help.”  
  
“Why were they looking for you, really?”  
  
“It’s their favorite past time,” he said dejectedly. “They said that my family didn’t exactly pay for what happened during the war, so they’re taking it out on me.”   
  
She furrowed her brow in both concern and wonder. “How long has this been happening?”  
  
“The beginning of term,” he admitted softly.  
  
She put her hands on her hips. “Well that simply won’t do. You need to tell someone.”  
  
He shook his head. “No. I’m fine now, thanks in large part to you.”  
  
She blushed a bit and shrugged. “I didn’t do anything.”  
  
“Are you kidding?” he asked surprised by her reaction. “What you did probably saved me a beating. So, I owe you.”  
  
She held out her hand. “I’m Rose.”  
  
It seemed silly for her to announce who she was as everyone in the school knew. But he shook her hand and smiled. “Scorpius.”_  
  
*~*  
  
To Scorpius, a friendship with Rose seemed almost natural. They were both avid studiers and amazing students. They’d made besting one another in grades into a competition and even helped to tutor one another if there was a concept the other wasn’t grasping.   
  
Her cousins had warned her against such a friendship, but she had been steadfast in her defense of Scorpius. His father had told him that her family would disapprove of them growing close. When prompted by Scorpius, Draco Malfoy had done the unthinkable; he’d given them his blessing to become friends. This only made everyone on the Weasley-Potter side question it even more as they couldn’t understand how someone like Draco could give his approval for Scorpius and Rose to be friends due to their history.   
  
However, Rose stood defiantly against her family and became friends with Scorpius. After one such episode where Scorpius’s house mates taunted not only Scorpius, but Rose, her cousins came around and stopped being so hostile towards him. It also helped that he then had backup from someone else. As time grew on and they grew up, Scorpius found that his genuine feelings for her had blossomed into much more. The only problem was that he was positive that she didn’t feel the same way about him.  
  
He had decided he would bury his love for Rose Weasley deeper than even he knew. He refused to acknowledge it existed and went on being her friend. He was her shoulder to cry on when she broke up with her boyfriend, he was the rational mind she picked when she needed advice on careers, and he was her rock through the turmoil of her parent’s divorce. She confided in him things that she would never tell anyone else. He had no idea she felt it was a burden to be the child of Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. She confessed that she felt pressure to be as smart as her mother and as friendly and athletic as her father. He thought it would be a blessing to be the child of true war heroes, but Rose quickly dashed those thoughts when her father sent her a letter lamenting the fact that she allowed Scorpius to top her in her grades. Her mother remained silent on her marks.   
  
He felt that in retaliation of the pressure her parents put on her, whether of her own making or otherwise, she began dating boys that her father would never approve. She made points of snogging them in public places so people would talk about the ‘attitude of that Weasley girl’. Her fifth year was the worst. She made it a point to get in as much trouble as she possibly could, rivaling even her uncle’s. He remembered on several different occasions that she made sure to get caught snogging boys in the corridors by Professors. And instead of trying to discourage letters to her parents about such behavior, she often escalated things a bit and made matters once. Scorpius remembered such an occasion where she had made the professor so angry that her parents were summoned to the school for a conference. Instead of making her parents furious the way she had hoped, they had simply said they were disappointed in her and left.  
  
He watched as her plan spiraled out of control and before either of them knew it, the girl that had saved him from bullies his first year was but a memory. Rose had confessed everything, how she had only done those things to set her apart, to not be like her parents as she was tired of the constant comparison.   
  
_Scorpius found her sitting on the edge of the window in the Astronomy tower, her legs pulled to her chest as she stared out at the dark sky. He’d gone looking for her after Albus told him that Hermione and Ron had both arrived at the school after having been summoned by Professor Longbottom and that the meeting had not gone well.  
  
As he moved closer, she turned to look at him and he saw clearly the tears streaming down her face. She stood and moved over to wrap her arms around his neck and cry. He brushed his hand over her hair, not trying to shush her, but allowing her to get everything out.   
  
“I screwed up, Scorpius,” she sobbed into his robes.  
  
“What happened? Al told me your parents were here,” he said as he maneuverd her over to the sill of the window and they sat together, his arm wrapped around her shoulders.  
  
“Professor Longbottom caught me snogging Jefferey Corley in the Arithmancy classroom. He made a threat that he would write to my parents and I told him to go right ahead.” She shook her head. “I expected them to be angry. I **wanted** them to be angry.”  
  
She was silent for a bit, sniffling as he rubbed her arm. He couldn’t imagine what would make her do such a thing. “Were they angry?”  
  
“My dad was.” She shrugged. “But…not like I thought. I was certain that they would tell me that my behavior was unacceptable and that I was tarnishing their good name.”  
  
“Did they?” he asked.  
  
She started crying again. “No. My Mum told me that the choices I make now, no matter what the intent, could come back to haunt me in ways I didn’t yet understand. That she was certain that my actions were in retaliation against them for their past and allowing me to feel like I had to live up to their name…” she huffed out a breath. “My Mum is too perceptive for her own good. But the worst was that she said she was disappointed in me.” She shook her head. “They’ve said a great many things to me in the past, Scorpius, but she’s never said she was disappointed in me,” she buried her face in her hands.  
  
“I’m really sorry.”  
  
“Ugh, this is so stupid! I don’t even like Jeffrey.”  
  
He furrowed his brow in confusion. “If you don’t like him, then why were you snogging him?”  
  
“To piss them off. For all the reasons that she said.” She frowned. “I resent my parents, Scorpius. A part of me dislikes them, a lot, for being who they are and doing what they did. I can’t seem to get out from under the expectations that people have for me because of who they are.”  
  
Scorpius thought that if anyone understood how she felt, that it was him. He knew all about living through the sins of the father. In her case, it was the good deeds her parents had done that she was having to over-come, not the terrible acts of misguided people.  
  
“I just wanted people to see me and not my parents.”  
  
He smiled. “You got what you wanted,” he said as she squeezed her tightly. “The only problem is that now you have a…reputation and you may be able to escape your parent’s past deeds, but those we reap on ourselves are sometimes harder to overcome.”  
  
She sighed and shook her head. “What the hell was I thinking?”  
  
“You weren’t?”  
  
She cut her eyes at him and then stared at the floor. “Thanks. What do I do now?”  
  
“Do you want to change?”  
  
“I think so,” she said after a moment.  
  
“Then change.”  
  
“How?”  
  
He smiled. “First, we’ll get your marks back up. Second, no more snogging boys in the corridor or classroom where anyone can find you, and if you do, make sure it’s a boy you like. And third, be who you really are. This girl isn’t you,” he finished.  
  
She looked up at him. “Will you help me?”  
  
He nodded and leaned his cheek against the top of her head. “Of course,” he whispered. _  
  
Through all of it, Scorpius had stayed her friend, her confidant, and at times, her conscious. She lamented his lack of spontaneity and his ability to let loose and have fun. Truth was, he wanted to, but he wasn’t sure he would be able to in Hogwarts. He felt stifled and sad that his entire life revolved around what his father had done, and while he felt he could help her out of her problem living in her parent’s shadow, he was unable to get from beneath his family’s past.  
  
Scorpius made a decision that he would leave England and go to France once he was finished with school. He planned to work as an international business liaison for his father’s company as he was fluent in French, Spanish, and Italian. Rose was furious with him for deciding something so huge without telling her that he was even considering doing such a thing. He was resolute and he’d left without looking back. Scorpius had only one regret and that had been leaving without telling her how much she meant to him. He had felt that it was the right thing to do by her, and so he cut off most contact with her. He sent her a scarce few owls, wanting desperately to talk to her more than that, but he didn’t want her to feel as if he was trying to pull her back in.  
  
But he’d been forced to move back home. His father had sent him an owl asking for his return, and after much delaying, he finally returned and Draco revealed that Astoria, Scorpius’s mother, had breast cancer. He remembered feeling both rocked and numb. He went to appointments with the doctors with his mother and father, he watched her go through the treatments, both magical and Muggle, and her final resolve that she just wasn’t going to suffer through this any longer. The doctors advised that it wasn’t wise to quit treatment, but Astoria made up her mind and Scorpius and his father were powerless to stop her.   
  
Draco had all but quit running the company in order to spend time with her, and Scorpius had moved back into the manor. Astoria told them both that she loved them and would always be there to watch over them. Scorpius felt that he wanted to be selfish and want her to stay with them. He wanted to scream at his father to make her go back on the treatment, but even he saw how Astoria seemed happier not suffering through the pain of the treatment. She asked Draco to take her to Italy once more, and he did. She asked that Scorpius move home permanently, as his father would need him when she passed. He complied. She lasted three months after she stopped treatment and then she passed. Scorpius couldn’t bring himself to attend the funeral, even at his grandparents and his father’s prodding. He felt hollow, as if he was missing something.  
  
Draco had resorted to cruel measures by sending Rose after him.   
  
_Scorpius had taken refuge in the gardens, hiding from the world. He couldn’t watch them lay his mother to rest, and so he’d gone and hid himself in the labyrinth. “So, this is where you’re hiding?” he turned to see Rose standing at the entrance of the small courtyard. She was wearing a black Muggle dress and her normally wild hair was pulled back in a sensible French braid.  
  
He looked up at the blue sky and felt the sun on his face. “Yes. Isn’t it lovely.”  
  
She moved closer to him, her heels clicking over the stone floor. “It is. But you realize everyone else is over by the mausoleum? They’re laying your mother to rest today.”  
  
“I’m well aware of that, thank you.”  
  
She sat beside him and stared up at the sky as well. “Don’t you think you should be there?”  
  
“Why? I was there when she died,” he said stoically.  
  
She looked over at him and he felt his resolve loosening. “Because you owe it to her, Scorpius.”  
  
He shook his head and frowned. “She didn’t fight to stay alive, Rose,” he said, hating the words even as they left his mouth. He’d never told anyone that he was angry at his mother for not trying to live.  
  
“She did, Scorpius. She fought with all she had left. The treatment...”  
  
“What do you know about it?” he asked angrily and stood with his back to her. “I don’t need you to come here and tell me about my mother and her illness.”  
  
“What do you need?” she asked.  
  
He looked back at her, his blue eyes flashing with hurt and anger. “I need my mother here with me.”  
  
She tilted her head and him and then stood as well. “She’s here, Scorpius. She’ll always be with you, isn’t that what you told me when my grandfather passed? We never really lose the ones we love, we just have them with us in a different way.”  
  
He felt like crying. Leave it to Rose to make him cry. “Did it feel as terrible when I told you that as it does when you say it to me?”  
  
She gave a very small smile and put her hand on his arm. “Yes. The pain grows less immediate over time. For months, you’ll walk around and feel she should be there, and when she’s not it will hit you and nearly knock you to the floor with the loss and hurt. But there will come a time where you think of her and you smile instead of cry.”  
  
He lowered his head, keeping his tears a bay, and did a fine job of it until she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him. His arms made their way around her small frame and he hugged her back burying his face in her neck and letting out a ragged breath. She didn’t shush him or anything, she just allowed him to release his pain. When he finished, after an unknown period of time, he pulled back and released her. She took his hand in hers and led him out of the garden and to his mother’s funeral where he was greeted with a hug by his father.   
  
Rose sat behind him during the ceremony in which his mother was laid to rest._  
  
It had been a very long time since he’d last seen Rose. To his recollection, it had been his mother’s funeral, the year before. She had written him, telling him of her job with the Quidditch federation, marketing teams to new areas, the latest exploits of her cousins James and Albus and the trouble they so easily found themselves in, and of how much she missed his presence in her life; but he never wrote her back. It was the realization that he was hopelessly in love with her that kept him from doing so. She’d always been there when he needed her. However, he didn’t want her to waste her life with someone like him. He knew that it was selfish to give her no say-so in the matter, but he did what he felt was best. It was one of the few things in his life that he had control over anymore.  
  
His father had thrust himself wholly into his work, making every point not to think about how the loss of his wife had nearly crippled him. Draco was already withdrawn to most of the world, and he’d worked himself into such a position that now he had become that way toward his son. The stress of work and not truly dealing with the hurt and pain of losing his wife had caused him to have a heart attack. Draco recovered, but was ordered by the doctor not to go to work for several months and to undergo therapy to allow him to deal with the pain of losing his wife. Scorpius made it his mission to take over for his father and to make sure he went to see the therapist.   
  
It was Draco who had forced Scorpius to attend the annual Christmas for the Ministry. Draco was not above using guilt to get what he wanted. Scorpius attended, alone. He hadn’t planned to see Rose, as he wasn’t sure what she was doing now. He figured she’d managed to leave the country and settled down on the French Rivera with some guy who was incredibly rich and wholly not good for her. If for no other reason than it would really irritate her father. But as he was ordering a drink, he was surprised to get a tap on the shoulder, when he turned to greet the person, he received a swift slap across the face followed by a suffocating hug.  
  
It was Rose.  
  
She clung to him and squeezed him harder as he wrapped his arms around her. “You’re a selfish ass,” she said into his ear.  
  
He smiled and nodded. “I’m well aware of that,” he said as he pulled back and smiled at her. “Why did you hit me?”  
  
“Because you seem to think it’s perfectly acceptable to leave anytime you feel like it and you don’t give a damn about what it does to me.”  
  
He frowned. “I never meant to hurt you,” he insisted.  
  
“Ignoring my existence? That hurts me,” she said softly.   
  
He brushed a lock of hair back from her face and sighed. “I thought I was doing you a favor. The less you have to explain to your parents about our friendship the better.”  
  
She put her hands on her hips. “My relationship with my parents has nothing to do with you. I’ve been your friend since we were children. They know that. Besides, I would never want you out of my life, Scorpius,” she finished. “Don’t you know what it does to me when you cast me aside so easily.”  
  
“I assure you, it wasn’t my intention to make you feel that way and it was not easy.”  
  
She shook her head and pulled him behind her out of the main atrium of the Ministry. They found a long hallway and Rose leaned against the opposite wall to stare at him. “I need to know something, Scorpius.”  
  
“Alright. You can ask me anything.”  
  
“Can I? I used to think so. But the last few years have left a lot of doubt in my mind as to what we mean to one another. I thought that, maybe, with you moving back that we would mend our broken friendship, but you shut me out again. Can I ask you why?”  
  
He ran a hand through his hair and huffed out a breath. “Because I thought...because if I watched you look at everyone else other than me for much longer I would go insane. You never acted like you saw me as anything other than your friend. Damn, Rose, you talked to me about the blokes you snogged, and if you’re doing that, then you couldn’t possibly see me as anything else but your friend,” he finished, breathless at the end. He was waiting for his entire world to crash in on him when she finally told him that she didn’t feel that way about him.  
  
She was silent for a moment and stepped forward and started to punch him. “You selfish prat!”  
  
“Why are you hitting me?” he questioned as he grasped her wrists in his hands and stopped her.  
  
“Because I’m amazed at how dense you can be.” She stepped back. “I can’t believe this,” she said as she turned her back to him and seemed to be settling herself. “Are you in love with me?” she asked, her hands on her hips.  
  
He sighed and knew he couldn’t lie to her. “Yes.”  
  
She turned quickly. “Scorpius, you’re so stupid,” she said with a frown. “You accuse me of looking at everyone else except you when you never opened your own eyes. I did the things I did to get _your_ attention.” She shook her head. “You never showed interest in me as anything besides your friend.”  
  
“I thought...I thought that’s all you wanted from me.”  
  
She glared at him. “So, you arbitrarily decided that you would leave for what purpose?”  
  
“I thought I was...It hurt less than watching you with others,” he was stunned they were even having this conversation.  
  
“I see. So, instead of owning up to how you feel about me, instead of _telling_ me, you chose to leave and then _ignore_ me? You’re...you know what...since you made the decision for _me_ as to how _I_ feel, I’m going to make a decision for you, this time. I’m going to walk away because it’s what you deserve,” she said as she turned and left the hall and went back into the party. Scorpius leaned against the wall and sighed before he banged his head against it a few times.  
  
He’d never considered that she felt the same about him as he did her. It never entered his mind that she could be harboring feelings for him at the same time he was pining for her. That her every indiscretion was to get _his_ attention. Now that the opportunity was out there and he knew how she felt, he was bolstered into action.   
  
He moved back into the party and hoped she was still there. He found her at the bar, taking shot after shot. He put his hand over her third one and she glared up at him as she snatched it away from him and downed it anyway. “Another one,” she called to the bartender.  
  
Scorpius shook his head. “She’s done,” he said as he grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her into the same hall. “You have a lot of nerve to be mad at me.”  
  
Her eyes widened, obviously not expecting that. “I beg your pardon.”  
  
“What the hell was I supposed to think, Rose? You never gave me any sort of hint that you liked me as more than that. When you broke up with someone, you came crying to me, you bragged about your relationships and how it pissed off your father, and you never told me how _you_ feel.”  
  
“I did all of that to get your attention, not my father’s.”  
  
“How was I supposed to know?” he questioned. “As I saw it, you were the golden child of two-thirds of the Golden Trio. I was the son of a known Death Eater. I was ostracized by my own house for a very long time, my family is barely tolerated in our world, and you were always showing interest in everything and everyone besides me.” He shrugged. “I thought that you wanted me in the role of friend, always.”  
  
She folded her arms over her chest and stared at the floor. She seemed to be weighing the situation in front of her when her blue eyes suddenly looked up at her. “How is it that we were, once so good at communicating with one another only to find out that both of us have been holding this in for years.”  
  
He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I suppose we talked about everything except this.”  
  
She sighed. “I’m still angry with you.”  
  
He shrugged. “I’m sort of fine with that.”  
  
She folded her arms over her chest and stared at him. “So, what do we do now? I mean, we finally told one another how we feel...”  
  
“Actually, I told you how I feel. You’ve left me to assume,” he started and she interrupted.  
  
“You better watch yourself, Scorpius, or you may not make it out of here alive.”  
  
He smiled and stepped forward. “So, I take it that I’m to assume that you are possibly in love with me, too?”  
  
She shrugged. “At the moment, I don’t even like you.”  
  
He slid his arms around her waist and tilted his head at her, examining the sour expression on her face. “Maybe so, but you love me.”  
  
She looked up at him, her eyes welling with tears. “Of course I love you, you idiot.” She slid her arms around his neck and hugged him to her. “If you ever cut me off again, I’ll cut _you_ off. Are we clear?”  
  
He smiled into her hair. “Extremely.”  
  
“You realize that you’ll be spending Christmas with me at my mother’s house and you’ll go along with her ideas about singing carols and such because you’re going to be the best boyfriend to make up for how terrible you’ve been as a friend, right?”  
  
He nodded and pulled back from her. “And it’s only fair that you’ll come to the manor for gift giving and drinking of brandy?”  
  
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like brandy.”  
  
“When it’s poured over ice cream, I’m sure you’ll make an exception.”  
  
She grinned. “You may know me too well.”  
  
He shook his head. “Not so sure about that. I mean, we haven’t even kissed yet.”  
  
She seemed shocked by this. “Oh, you’re right. We could be talking about things that don’t matter. What if you’re a terrible kisser?”  
  
He raised an eyebrow. “Why do you assume I’m the problem?”  
  
She shrugged. “It can’t be me. I’ve never had a complaint and I’ve had a lot of practice. I never heard of you once kissing a girl.”  
  
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Just because I didn’t feel like broadcasting it to the world doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” he realized, of course, that she was baiting him. “But if you don’t want to kiss me and risk the friendship, then that’s perfectly fine. We can go back to being friends and not even travel down this road,” he said as he started to pull away from her.  
  
She shrugged. “If that’s how you feel. I’m sure we can find someone at this party who would kiss you to make sure that I’m not wasting my time.”  
  
She was teasing. He knew she was. Yet, it still pissed him off enough to spurn him into action. He grasped her face and pulled her lips against his. She wrapped her arms around him as he slid his tongue against her lips asking for entrance. When she gasped, he slipped inside, tasting what had always been forbidden to him. Rose was not one to just sit back and be kissed. Her tongue met his as he pushed her against the wall, amazed that he was finally doing what he’d always wanted.   
  
Rose lifted a leg, allowing him to press against her. When he did, they broke the kiss and gasped as he gripped her thigh and ground against her. She shook her head and stopped him. “We can’t do this here,” she said as she righted herself and moved away from him.  
  
He was a bit dazed, the intensity of the last few minutes having gone to his head. “Right.”  
  
She had her back to him and suddenly turned. “Let’s go to my place.”  
  
He shook his head. “No.”  
  
She furrowed her brow at him as a frown settled over her lips. “Why not?”  
  
He took a moment to collect his thoughts before he spoke. “Because, I just think we should take it slow. We’ve been friends for so long and now that we have this opportunity, I don’t think we should rush it.”  
  
“Scorpius, I’ve felt this way about you since I was fourteen. This isn’t rushing it,” she said as she gripped his lapel in her hands.  
  
He smiled. “I don’t want this to be some spontaneous event that happens after a Christmas party where you’ve already been drinking. I want...I want you. More than I can put into words and you have no idea the self-control that I’m having to exert here. But that doesn’t change my mind about thinking that rushing into it isn’t a good idea.”  
  
She huffed out a breath and stared at his Adam’s apple. “Fine. But I expect you to dance with me and not complain when I rub up against you because you could have ended your suffering.”  
  
He grinned and leaned in to place a soft kiss against her lips. “Very well.”  
  
*~*  
  
Christmas Eve found Scorpius and Rose attending dinner with his father and grandparents. While his grandfather was less than happy with Scorpius’s idea of a match, he’d kept the comments to himself. Rose had done her best not to seem intimidated by the older couple as she knew very well of their roles in the war.   
  
She also noticed that Draco seemed very withdrawn and unhappy. Scorpius explained to Rose that it was his mother’s favorite holiday and would decorate the entire house in fairylights and the manor itself would seem to burst at the seams with joy. The house was beautifully decorated, a large tree in the great room covered in lights and shiny glass balls that seemed too delicate to touch. Rose found out from the conversation at the dinner table that the house had been decorated in memory of Astoria upon Draco’s orders.   
  
It was after dinner when Rose and Scorpius were leaving that Rose noticed the pictures along the mantel of Scorpius when he was very young with his parents. It wasn’t like the ornate portrait that was hanging over the fireplace that depicted the Malfoy family in their regal glory. This one was of a much younger Draco, Astoria, and Scorpius, sitting on what appeared to be a blanket on the grass. Scorpius was perched on his father’s lap being tickled by his parents who were both laughing. They turned to look at the camera and waved and went back to tickling their son. It was then she realized that there was much more to the Malfoy family than anyone knew and it warmed her heart to know that he’d grown up loved despite what could have happened.  
  
She looked up at him when they were leaving and gave him a warm smile, which he returned. In a flash of Floo powder, they were gone and standing in Rose’s flat. She flipped on the dial of the wireless, finding the Christmas carols that had been playing to be very soothing. She felt Scorpius move behind her and wrapped his arms around her and propped his head on her shoulder. She turned in his arms and wrapped them around his neck. “Merry Christmas,” she said, softly.  
  
He leaned his forehead against hers. “It will be,” he said softly.  
  
She leaned up and kissed him. Rose loved kissing him. He was soft and his lips were amazing against hers. She felt she could kiss Scorpius for hours and never tire of it. She broke the kiss briefly and stared at him. “Would you like to see my bedroom?” she asked. She would be crushed if he turned her down again.  
  
He licked his lips and nodded. “Yeah.”  
  
She nearly jumped into his arms. As it was, she grasped his face in her hands and brought his lips against hers in a hard and demanding kiss. As they tripped into her bed room, their mouths still fused together and removing clothing at lightning speed, Rose let it briefly wash over her that she was finally going to have all of Scorpius. As his hands explored areas that they’d never done and before she knew it, they were rolling around on the bed, both trying to touch and taste everything.   
  
His lips moved gently over her breasts, her nails grazed over the skin of his back. She nearly bucked off the bed when his fingers skimmed over her folds and she gasped at the feel of his questing fingers delving into her with gentle strokes. “Scorpius, I want you,” she released in a breathy sigh.  
  
He moved between her thighs and she wrapped her legs around his waist, trying to get him ever closer. He slid inside her and the both moaned in unison. He leaned his forehead against hers as he was still for several long seconds. She had her arms and legs around him, their bodies joined in every way as he leaned in and kissed her. Asked about it later, she wouldn’t be able to tell anyone how long it lasted, whether they broke a sweat, or the sounds that they made. She would remember how he’d felt above her, the way he’d kissed her after she’d told him she loved him, and the feeling of his hand drifting lower to have her fall with him.   
  
Lost in the afterglow, they laid together, stroking, kissing one another. It was surreal to her that she felt so connected with him. She’d had several partners, some of which she regretted, but she never felt a connection, like it was where she was supposed to be. But wrapped in Scorpius’s arms, feeling his lips moving along her jaw, she finally felt like she’d found peace.


End file.
